Correlation does not equal causation. "Connecting the dots" is often a specious conclusion. We have to be careful here to insure accuracy. I'm on one of the safety committees on the pilot side.

Reminds me of the movie "A Civil Affair" - based on a true story - when the attorney played by Robert Duvall is cross examining the witness about cancer. "Ever pump your own gas? Ever get your clothes dry cleaned?"

The likelihood of specifically identifying these fumes as inducing a medical condition - given the thousands of variables pilots are exposed to - are remote.

Kind of also reminds me of laser events. I wrote a four page article for an aviation publication on laser hits. Interviewed numerous experts. Wore laser goggles in the cockpit for a month. There are ZERO cases of long term medical damage when hit by a laser in the cockpit. ZERO. Despite the contentions of pilots that never report back to work. It's simply not possible to incur that type of injury. Flashblindess yes. Startle, yes. Retina damage, no. I researched it for six months.

It's important to not jump to conclusions. I was a firefighter. That's pretty relevant if I go to the hospital with a fumes event and they find lung damage. Correlation does not equal causation.

 

Our CRJ's at awac smelled like dirty sock pretty much all summer and any time you flew through a cloud. Still trucking, so I guess it wasn't THE dirty sock smell.

 

What's funny is the people blaming the pilots when it was the stewardesses that felt ill. What would you do if your flight attendants called and said that they were breathing something in and felt sick?

 

This guy get's it, but won't be very popular for saying it. What's more, once someone makes that correlation-causation leap and starts spreading the idea, the group psychology takes over and the thing takes on a life of it's own.

 

You'd start shutting off packs and descending to 10000 if needs be.

 

We don't have a procedure for that. There's a visible smoke removal procedure but not a fumes removal procedure.

 

You know what. You might want to look into what Spirit has been doing about this problem. Including new procedures. Sounds like you mightn't be very informed on this topic.

 

I'm aware of Spirit's procedure. Are you saying we now have a similar one? I may be mistaken but I didn't think we had one. Especially one that involved depressurizing the aircraft.

 

Man they sure did.

 

The ironic thing is pilots like to think that we think so independently yet we are major victims of group think